One last farewell
by Slim Molts
Summary: Yoichi finds himself once more standing before the Manor of Sleep; a dream world come nightmare that sleep will not let him escape from. But something is calling him in, a cherished voice beckons to him from inside the mansion, a voice he is unable to resist following in. But this night, something is different, 'She' is there, and this night, 'She' won't let him escape.
1. First Hour

Hour 1:

_I'm here again, that mansion, just like before._

_What was it she said? "Take the hand of the dead and they may never let go."_

_Right before she…those were her last…_

_But, I just want to see her again, one last time, I know she's in here, she must be in here! She's alive, somehow, isn't she? Isn't she alive?_

Yoichi Suda stood before that foreboding Edo manor once more shrouded in a twisting blur of achromatic haze that flickered like a timeworn projection reel running through its last showing. Snow fell all around the man; yet as it melted into his greying hair he noticed for the first time that it was not cold -as snow should be, but warm and electric.

The familiar sound of hammers striking against steel echoed through the fog and static, enough already to assure Yoichi he had arrived.

As though pulled by imperceptible spirits Yoichi's boots clopped up the weathered wooden staircase as though the man's aged body were fighting against his own will to enter. He stopped at the top of the staircase; something felt different about tonight, he had noted it the moment he had arrived here, he wasn't sure what exactly but somehow…he felt comfortable, almost like the mansion had dropped its hostility towards him and now welcomed him into its hearth.

He instinctively reach for his bottle of courage usually nestled discreetly in his jacket pocket but found nothing, it wasn't as though he felt the pain here anyway but the whiskey had become so much a part of his character it was almost aberrant to withstand it.

With a deep and sorrowful groan, the huge oak doors heaved open as though pushed outward by the spirits of the manor, welcoming him home. Yoichi tugged the flashlight from his pocket -it was there as it always was despite never having owned a flashlight in his life- and steadying his breath he dissolved into the darkness.

Already, even in the dusty darkness, from every decaying corner of the abandoned manor, Yoichi could hear it: That song, he could only make out one or two lines, or the odd word here and there, something about 'sacred marks', 'go to the other side' and the line 'Sleep priestess lie in peace,' was certainly a prominent lyric in such a haunting melody that could only have been sung by one or two young women. Shadows seemed to lurch and flicker everywhere around the pale mansion with every turn through its decomposing halls that Yoichi now retraced.

'What is this' He wondered, 'the fortieth, or fiftieth night now, that I've had this same dream?'

Some mornings he would wake in a cold sweat but couldn't even remember having the dream, but mostly, his memory would be as clear as the windows here evidently were not. But always, when he awoke, **it** would be there, **it** started as a bruise, he fell over a lot these days while drunkenly stumbling about the house, so he initially had passed over it for a simple injury that quickly cleared away. But morning after morning the bruise would reappear; then he noticed a pattern: intricate black spirals that took the form of the snake, thorny scales that burned his flesh as it slithered across his skin, tangling and winding it's way through a bush of holly that spread it's prickly branches from his back and around his neck, it was around that time that **She** started to appear, but just thinking of **her** made him shiver, he forced her out of his mind for fear he may invite her with his thoughts.

The corridors were all becoming so familiar now, like walking through his own house he knew every twist, turn and trick the mansion held in stock for him, as he rounded a corner he was now facing a long and crooked corridor than was lined along one side with stained partitions and sliding doors, then there before him, he saw his love: A beautiful young woman with long black hair, glowing white and silhouetted in a nimbus of spectral aura that wisped away from her like flames and smoke as she drifted away from him and down the hall.

Yoichi reached a hand to call her but found words impossible here so as rapidly as he could muster he stumbled after her. Strength was something he was evermore devoid of here, like his body was weighed down by the heavy atmosphere of the manor so much that he could only run as though in deep water, almost as though the floor was sliding away beneath him; it was frustrating but oddly soothing at the same time. Suddenly Yoichi felt something burn across his back, a familiar pain that stopped him in his tracks and caused him to cower until the pain subsided, as it subsided a high pitched whine rose into the air, something like the noise made by the flash of a camera. Yoichi could now feel something dark, heavy and opposing was behind him and cautiously he craned his neck around to see what had manifested.

"I don't want to see, anymore.' Came the tortured voice, a voice that belonged to the very person Yoichi had dreaded may appear tonight; it was **her**: a gray skinned woman with flowing hair the colour of coal, topless as the day she died to this world and every inch of her naked flesh engraved with a rich tapestry of tattoo ink, it reminded Yoichi of the willow pattern found on a weathered Chinese teapot he had spotted in his attic some weeks back. What exactly the tattoos conveyed, Yoichi had never cared to discover, for somehow he knew –without ever having been told or knowing anything of this woman – that if he were to even touch her or let her touch him, he might befall the same fate that had her trapped here and waiting for him, and if her wailing and sobbing was anything to encourage him, he knew that her pain was not something he could bear.

"So many voices," she said, as she floated down the corridor after him, "So much pain, please…let me sleep."

"No!" Yoichi begged with her, "Please! Leave me alone, I can't help you!"

"Etched in…" she continued, "over and over I hear them, their pain, always in my eyes."

"Please!" Yoichi pleaded, bursting through a door and slamming it shut behind him,

"I understand, I do really! But there's nothing I can do, please leave me alone!"

Yoichi backed away from the door but it was useless, the door tore open with a rush of blue flames and now facing her, Yoichi could clearly see a tangle of tormented souls writhing around her in a cloud of inescapable suffering. Then he did something he had not done before, he glanced into her eyes, and there in her stare he saw the suffering. Like a room full of hundreds of men, women and children screaming and calling out for escape, pleading for an end to this sorrowful existence, but what could Yoichi do? What could anyone do for that matter? How could he make it stop?

Before he even knew it she was right before him, with each narrowing of distance he heard and saw a little more, unable to turn away from the trance she had holding him there Yoichi was close enough now to embrace her.

"It is you." The female whispered in tortured disbelief, "You returned, Kaname."

With those words Yoichi broke from the spell as he realised she was now drawing her tattooed arms around him, a grasp from which he may never escape. He dropped down and threw himself to the side, hitting the warm wood with a hefty crunch yet now away from her clutch, as he scrambled to his feet and dashed down a nearby hallway he took one last look back to see her simply stood watching him as he escaped her grasp, but it was the look to her face that he remembered more than her shadow: for there was no malice in her stare, it was a look of utter sorrow. But then, if that was the case, what did she want from him? Furthermore, who was Kaname?


	2. Second Hour

Hour 2:

The further Yoichi got from the malevolent woman, the more he noticed the dark oppression disintegrating away from him and fading somewhere into the echoes of the manor to just a tight but bearable tension.

Her words; _"You returned, Kaname."_

What did that mean? Who was this _Kaname_? Questions that would have to remain unanswered for the moment as Yoichi now found himself passing through a thick haze of dust that had stagnated in the murky corridor he now dragged his lumbering feet through. Before him lay a sealed door and from all around ropes and lumber creaked and groaned with absent footsteps, there was a strong sense here of motion - running, feet and hands scrambling across the black stained floorboards: In fact, when Yoichi swayed a little closer to the decaying wood, he could just make out coarse scars in the boards, tightly set in rows of four and spaced almost like footsteps; it was as though something had pulled sharp fingers all along the hall, the deep black staining of the wood only led Yoichi's thoughts to assume something terrible had occurred here. The door before him grumbled open with a forceful shove, as it swung into the room a great breath of wind pushed inside and sent a myriad of ashen dust flurrying all about the small space. In the light of an ancient projector the dust spiralled and sparkled like little fairies excitedly encouraging him toward their magical moving picture device and Yoichi -wondering how such a modern(ish) device had found its way into a two-thousand year old manor – approached it as they willed. There was a faint buzzing emanating from the projector that sat atop a table draped in black silk and although Yoichi knew or cared little about electrical equipment, he knew as much as this – someone had used it recently.

Now stood before it Yoichi examined the machine: the frame of the device seemed oversized yet spindly and a great deal of the inner mechanisms lay exposed, there was no film loaded into the spindle yet just to the side of the projector sat a battered film canister that had rusted to a violent red hue. Yoichi stretched his fingers warily out to reach for the reel and as he did the projector suddenly shifted a good three or four inches toward his reach knocking his hand aside and the reel clattering to the floor, the case sprung open and a torn sheet of paper danced through the air, resting at Yoichi's feet.

Reaching for the paper Yoichi could tell that this had been written a long time ago, for one thing it wasn't printed, and for another the penmanship was highly disciplined and archaic, in a style he had only seen in museums or samurai cartoons. He read;

_He said his favourite colour was red,_

_Mother says I can wear red if I like, but I prefer blue._

_Which is better, red or blue? I really cannot decide._

_But I think for him I would wear red._

_I will see him again tomorrow, this will be the last time before he goes away._

_I hope he doesn't go away for long,_

_You know, Kaname, he told me_

_his name means 'dreams come true'._

_I have dreamed about him,_

_I hope he comes back quick._

_I hope my dreams come true._

_-Yukishiro, Reika._

'That name, _Kaname_.' Yoichi pondered, pocketing the note, 'Did **she** write this…before…'

As he glanced up, Yoichi saw that the light pouring from the projector was spotlighting a bookshelf wedged behind a cracked doorframe just from the right of where he stood. Stepping carefully across Yoichi ran his ring finger over the spines of a row of ancient volumes: books on flowers, early photography, wild animals and then…ritual sacrifice? Yoichi tugged the mould embossed book loose and flipped open to a random page:

_Furthermore, due to the multifaceted nature of many ritual sacrifices (by which a succession of individual rituals are performed sequentially as the cornerstones of one much more elaborate ceremony) the translation from region to region and moreover practice of such rituals can often be misinterpreted or performed incomplete._

_This is particularly the case when we consider the aforementioned 'Drinking of the birth' ritual, as speculated to have been performed in the late 18__th__ century in the Shimane prefecture: In the original texts of this ritual a young girl of childbearing age was selected from the village population to become the sacrificial maiden for the 'Drinking of the Birth' ritual, a ceremony consisting of four major rituals._

_'Sacrifice of sin' ritual: Blood must be taken from all women pregnant who wish for protection of the Gods over their unborn child._

_'Unification of blood' ritual: Blood must be offered to the maiden by each woman with a confession of sin, heard only by the sacrificial maiden and collected as confession of sin by her only. The blood must be drunk in whole by the maiden and by her only, thereby taking on the sins of the mother's both in blood and spirit._

_'Confession of spirit': The maiden must spend the next twelve hours in prayer that her sins are accepted and forgiven._

_'Confession of blood': The maiden is affixed upside down to a wooden altar and her blood let and drained, where it seeps into the earth to be accepted by the Gods._

_Documents found in neighbouring prefectures seem to portray a similar practice, even utilising the same nomenclature and structure to the ritual, although in some cases, the 'Confession of spirit' ritual was omitted and the four rituals in their entirety were amalgamated into one hurried ceremony, forced upon the maiden whether willing or not. It should be said that the maiden's often died from illness soon after the 'Unification of blood' ritual, probably from the large amounts of blood consumed in such a short space of time, though we can assume using modern medical practice that whether the ritual was performed or not made no difference to the survival of the children hence it was probably this variable that affected the alteration in practice of the 'Drinking of the birth' ritual._

Yoichi dragged his wide eyes away from the page, the idea of a young life so senselessly wasted all because of a translation error, or could it even have been just plain ignorance? Either way, he wondered if this might have some connection to the tattooed woman, who for now he seemed to have gained some distance from. Just then a flash of white crossed his eye line and he dropped the book to the floor reaching out as he saw his woman in white slipping through a door to the right of where he had entered. Rapidly he took flight and tearing the door open he was startled to see that she now stood affixed in the centre of the corridor; her gentle gaze like two black opals affixed to a pale, fragile doll someone had propped up in the hallway to startle intruders.

'Hitomi!' Yoichi heard her name pass his lips and it chilled him yet he had no idea why,

'Yoichi,' The ghost of a girl called out, 'You need to stop, please stop, if you carry on this way…you will die.'

'Dear!' He called, 'Where are you going, why won't you slow down, please, I just want to say…I need to say…'

'You don't understand.' She said, bowing her head with reverence, 'you can say it, all you need to do is stop, **do it for me**.'

'But how can I stop, I **have** to carry on, so that I can say…Damn, I just want to tell you that I- I…'

But Yoichi could not push the words through his clenching throat, even now he was struggling to breathe as the tightness in his neck increased, his left arm suddenly began to feel light and the sensation of a thousand tiny insects scurrying across his skin swept down to his fingers.

As she turned and began to gently drift away Yoichi's head began to pound with flushes of hot and heavy blood, his vision spiralled and as he lurched forward to give chase his chest suddenly tightened and he collapsed to the floor spastically tumbling to his side, he called out through the pain for her help but found not words spewing from his mouth, but a rich sputtering of blood.


	3. Third Hour

Awaking, Yoichi's arm carried no sensation whatsoever and his stomach cramped with a gurgle of vile acids. His eyes shied to the violent light of day so he screwed them shut, drawing a deep breath. The air seemed humid and stank of stale food and with his right arm he reached for the bottle of gin propped atop his bedside cabinet, but where the cold embrace of glass should have reminded Yoichi he had awoken from the nightmare, his hand instead touched something wooden and permanent and it caused his eyes to widen and his body to lurch upright. The world around him still burned and flickered with a lacklustre light that felt like depression painted across a breathing canvas; he sighed and using the banister he now gripped Yoichi pulled himself up to a wavering stance.

'Help!' Came a voice, 'Please! I don't want to go! Save me!'

Yoichi knew that voice, he didn't need the subsequent scream to assure him it was her, it was the one he had followed in here every night for the past…how many nights it had been now? He couldn't say. And each time just a little closer, but never close enough, but this time, he would do it, this time he would not let this dream end until he found her.

Following the source of his wailing beloved, Yoichi paced down a corridor, stumbling carelessly and crashing into the crumbling walls that turned to ash at his slightest touch, his heart pounded inside its cage for release from the jarring torment his nerves were stabbing into it, though as he rounded a corner he found no such release: Just a little ahead of him stood a small girl, her top white and with flowing sleeves and her high-waist skirt an incongruous shade of rich crimson. She seemed to be staring at him between two neat pigtails, her eyes wide with anxiety and her mouth parted at the mere vision of him.

'What are you…?' Yoichi began but was soon cut off by the small girl's outburst;

'Brother!' she exclaimed with a passionate smile, 'You know, she talked about you last night, it's this way, come on I'll show you! Come on!' She dashed off quicker than Yoichi could flinch, but her cries faded with her spirit as all but nothing remained in the corridor but Yoichi and the sultry breath of the manor pressing on his neck. Yoichi marched on down the hall nonetheless, following her ghost, now determined more than ever to free both himself and his love from this surreal nightmare before it wrapped its clammy hands around him and never let him escape.

Yoichi burst through another buckled door and found himself in a snowy square, the pale moonlight pierced a wisp of cloud and cast a dramatic spotlight over the courtyard and onto the looming tree that sprouted from the centre of it. Surrounding the tree, posts of varying heights had been lodged into the ground each bearing a small icon of cloth and stick in the shape of a red robed figure –a kushimi doll-, they seemed to be randomly distributed and of unequal length but owing to the weathered shimenawa wrapped around the trunk of the tree Yoichi could assume that this spirit tree and the surrounding figures were marked as a sacred sight of worship, or a ward against unwelcome spirits to the vast doors he could now see from behind the tree.

Yoichi moved cautiously around the raised wooden walkway that bordered the shrine, in this current state of extreme derealisation the melancholy mist of pale snow only served to throw his equilibrium and trust of sight into a maelstrom that swirled with every blink and turn, throwing shadows of gaunt women dressed in black and children chasing across rooftops at every moment. Yoichi could feel himself succumbing to some form of extremely sorrowful weariness; as though he had not slept for days and had done little but drinking straight spirits, the strange part was though that the familiar buzz of the booze that kept his mind on a straight and narrow track was absent, his conscience was clear but trapped inside the shell of a sluggish body that refused to yield to his any suggestion or force.

As Yoichi approached the two wide doors he noticed a glowing blue lantern flickering beside the entrance, somehow it's light seemed to dispel the anxiety poisoning his chest and his head dissolved a little clearer, he was beginning to feel a little more ready to face whatever prize fate held for him behind door number two.

Moving closer to the door Yoichi could see some form of doll affixed to the centre of the two doors, at the heart of the doll a Shinto prayer sheet hung from its chest, inscribed upon which a talisman of hiragana almost certainly dedicated to seal entry from unjustifiable malevolence.

Examining the ofuda it seemed to warp and bend with a mysterious blue spectral aura, there was also a fragrant scent here, something like a meadow of red and blue flowers Yoichi remembered passing one time. With a weary shove, Yoichi pushed against the door but found no give to the door, could it be that the ofuda genuinely had power in this world? He reached slowly for the doll but as his fingers were but an inch from the prayer sheet a sharp burning sensation tore across his fingers and yanking them back, Yoichi was horrified to see that his flesh had been singed quite badly, his digits now number than before Yoichi backed away to gain some perspective. Just as he was readying to give up on the riddle he heard a board creak with a hefty weight just behind him and he spun around.

'More blood,' a low, disembodied voice growled, 'more sacrifices.'

'Who's there?' Yoichi called into the darkness, frantically flashing his light left and right to locate the source of the imminent threat.

'To prevent…the rift…' the voice moaned, 'more sacrifices…'

'Show yourself,' Yoichi beckoned, sweat dripping from his forehead and his eyes wide with terror he backed into the corner as a rush of groaning voices and a din like a roaring jet engine encircled his being. All around him the voices clamoured with a twisting flurry of wind and snow; disharmoniously they droned, boring a thousand curses upon his ears until suddenly the noise stopped, and all fell silent for a moment.

Yoichi twisted his head a little to the left and caught a fleck of light shimmering against the cleaver poised at his neck,

'Now you die!' The hatchet wielding spirit bellowed as he swung for a beheading, with but a fraction of room to spare, Yoichi stumbled to the ground, narrowly avoiding the spirit's admonishment. Crawling rapidly into his feet Yoichi stumbled forward barely avoiding another swipe from the cleaver, turning back only for a moment Yoichi witnessed his attacker: A male, enrobed in white clothing with long swinging sleeves, billowing pants and ceremonial court hat; though where his face should normally have stared back, Yoichi saw only a twisted, grey mask that seemed to blur behind a wave of heat like distortion. Nonetheless, his narrow eyes burned white with an intense heat, like staring through the glass of a furnace, he could already feel the smouldering of the flames inside.

'You cannot **escape**!' The figure roared, slashing down towards Yoichi and catching him completely off guard, the blade sliced through his pale skin and drew a fresh score across his wrist, spraying a thin jet of blood across the wood as he staggered back toward the far side of the walkway. With murmured gibberish rolling from his dry tongue the spirit lumbered on after Yoichi as he dashed down a corridor just off to the right of the talisman door, in his haste to pressurise his fresh wound the torch slipped from Yoichi's trmebling fingers and in full flight he had no will let alone option to loop back and sweep it up, so through a door he forced his weight and plunged into the misty darkness. With but seconds until the relentless phantom would slide through the wall and then surely his neck, Yoichi took a blind left and dashed through a short corridor, he practically broke down the niggardly door and found himself fast approaching a familiar intersection in the hall ahead, going on complete luck he pitched left and spun around into another short hallway. Without his flashlight Yoichi barely noticed the door nearing to his right and with the sounds of the cursing spirit licking at his heels he instinctively leapt through the door without a moments thought.

Silence, Yoichi daren't open the door to confirm that the cleaver wielding maniac had indeed calmed his bloodlust so instead he frantically checked around for a place to hide himself. The first thing that struck Yoichi was the open size of the room; the heavily wooden furnishings seemed to be richly lacquered and gilded lovingly by fine hands, a craftsmanship that was not wasted on the somewhat out of place clock that sat high upon a pillar to his side. Yoichi, now feeling sure that the apparition had ceased it's rampage, shifted around to get a closer look at the clock, the dusty glass had broken in -probably it had not survived the frequent earthquakes common in certain areas of the country- and the inside had succumbed to centuries of neglect, in fact it was hard to tell if the pendulum had even moved in the first place as it looked so immobile. Then Yoichi spotted a battered scrap of paper peeking from the rim of the glass, taking his hand from his bloodied but stable wound he reached to retrieve the paper, but even pulling it to his eye line and straining in the pale light it was impossible to read without his torch. Pocketing the paper Yoichi spun around and made for a nearby staircase, as he ascended, the boards creaked with a worryingly vacant echo, and judging on the age and condition of the staircase, he was more than thankful to reach the top as fast as his legs could muster.

Glancing around him Yoichi spotted a horde of drawers arranged in a somewhat awkward cluster which he had to fight his way through in order to access. Like a drug addict in a pharmacy Yoichi began tearing open drawers and rummaging through the musty linens and bottles of varying colours to find something useful that would aid him through this situation. In one drawer he found a small wooden container of suspicious medicinal pills that he couldn't see any good reason for testing and an ornate bottle of what looked and smelt like water, but it wasn't as though he cared enough for the drink to taste it; in another drawer he found a number of keys but couldn't make out an inscription in the dark so left them be; several green books buried beneath rags that were heavily bloodied and torn; then in all but the last drawer Yoichi forced it open only to discover what looked like a very old and hardly used folding camera in the horizontal format, it had been left extended and Yoichi could see that around the shutter and adjustment sliders were a circle of symbols embossed in gold, they seemed rather like the numbers of a clock of not quite as many. Although the camera was beautifully crafted and did seem to invite his inner desire to wield this wonderfully retrograde device, 'what use were antiques if he couldn't take them from a dream,' Yoichi considered, so began to slide the drawer shut, but not before noticing something. In the drawer, just beneath a scattering of moulding papers, Yoichi spotted a cluster of pale blue, wax candles: rich twists of midnight blue merged around the bases of the candles and the pattern almost reminded him of the very tattoos that coiled around the limbs of…no, he couldn't let her saturate his mind! -it was understandably ridiculous to beckon someone through thought in the world awake, but in a dream where one is subject to any person, place or thing imaginable it might be enough to simply even wonder where she was for her to hear his call and answer it with her precipitous presence.

Just then, from behind him, an unseen step on the geriatric staircase sent the familiarly worrying squeal of aged wooden beams all about the room, flooding the darkness with an imperceptible threat that lingered maliciously, relishing his terror like a drug.

The staircase creaked again and Yoichi quickly spun around, hastily snatching a candle and fumbling around the drawer in the pale light. Something rattled and he tugged the matchbox free from beneath an assortment of starched rags, shaking it a little before sliding a match free and striking it against the side of the pack. The match splintered and sprung from his flailing fingers just as another step sounded though this time it sounded more like the heavy thud of a body hitting the staircase, rather than a single foot. In panic he fumbled the candle into darkness and as he tipped to collect it, the matches slid from the pack and scattered all across the floor.

'You cannot escape,' came a gruff voice that evoked instant recognition in Yoichi: for it seemed the cleaver wielding phantom was fully proficient in hide and seek and it was now Yoichi's turn to find him. For as Yoichi glanced back -whilst frantically clawing at the floor for the matches- he saw nothing but perpetual darkness, a sight both relieving and terrifying at the same time.

He had the candle! The match, the match, he had one! Now to strike it against the box, it snapped, again he struck a match and again it snapped, he took a steadying breath and struck it calmer against the box. With a burst of light, smoke and a gravelly hiss, the match ignited and he gently pulled the wick of the candle in the flame.

'Now you die!' Came the voice, as the cleaver swung for his eyes through the darkness.


	4. Fourth Hour

A spray of sky blue light erupted from the candle, blinding Yoichi momentarily and destroying any sense of equilibrium he had left remaining in this place. He was sure he had stayed afoot yet now he suddenly found himself trapped in a dark void, somewhere distant from where he had been before. The brilliant light had gone and he was not longer even holding the candle, from the darkness surrounding him Yoichi could hear a faint sobbing, female no doubt and soft and hoarse at first, barely but a whisper. As he stepped forward, unable even to make out his feet in the black; the sobbing seemed to intensify, Yoichi called out to the voice:

'Hey!' his voice resounded over and over as though he were facing a deep cavern with an eternity before him, 'Hey, is anybody here?'

The sorrowful weeping continued, it was as though the woman were weeping for having grown sick of weeping, her tears flowing for as long as this cavern she resided in.

Then a shape, shifting faintly in the dark before him became apparent, Yoichi didn't need to step much closer to realise who it was, it was **her**: The tattooed was sat low against a wall, her head buried in her bare arms and her glossy black hair cast across her face, blanketing all but her now gentle sobbing. Yoichi stepped just a little closer and her tears stopped abruptly, her head began to slowly rise and as his eyes adjusted to the thin light he saw her face turn to his and their eyes met once more. Her eyes, black as the light encircling them and shimmering like a winter night's sky, pierced his soul and opening her pale lips she begged with him;

'I don't want to see…anymore.'

Something was coming… Yoichi could feel a rushing of something, something quick and ferocious tearing through the cavern before him, the tattooed girl rose, as though pulled by strings to her feet and began to drift, drifting like a boat in water toward Yoichi, her arm outstretched, her eyes wide and her mouth as through gasping for air. Then, as though skipping through a video or a series of still frame photographs she suddenly appeared right before him, her arms stretched around him. Yoichi now saw what was coming: water –a vast black tsunami hurtling through the tunnel and it would be upon them in seconds, suddenly her arms embraced him and she pulled him into her body. He was burning, his whole skin burned with the pain of a thousand needles etching inks into his skin, he knew it was so for as he looked down he saw the tattoo's melt across her naked chest and slither across onto his own as though stretching into their new home, the tattoo's had hardly made it halfway when the black water thumped into them and for a moment he was swirling uncontrollably and drowning, still clutching her tight but unable to see a thing in the spiralling maelstrom, wondering just when the violent torrent would smash them into a rock and end their lives together as one.

Then he was back, alone and stood just as before, between storage chests and facing the stairs that had taken him here. It was a miracle; he acknowledged that he managed to remain at his feet as the candle light's birth simmered to a gentle blue glow. Though from the inarguable look of things, this was clearly no normal candle: the room around him and all distant sights beyond it seemed were now perfectly apparent and had full colour restored back to them; it was not as though the manor had much colour to it anyway, but it was a much welcome and calming relief to be immersed in the light and the aura of a familiar world again, even if he was to be stuck in this dream until it was finished with him, and who knew when that could be?

It seemed the candle had some authority over the spirit as he had mysteriously vanished without ever having truly appeared, though without a chamberstick to guard his hands from the drip of wax, Yoichi couldn't see this light keeping him for long, he collected the scattered matches and box into his pocket and shoved the remaining two candles into his jacket. He was about to leave when he noticed something downstairs, it was **her**, but not the bad **her**, it was his **her**! Dashing down the staircase -and spreading a coat of wax across his fingers in the process but not stopping to care- Yoichi exuberantly chased the fast moving girl down the room, past a partitioned room with a tatami mat spread across the floor and around to a set of double doors which then burst open with an system shocking flash, like sunlight after days of darkness. The light from outside caused Yoichi to screw his eyes shut and there was a sudden powerful gust of wind that he felt for sure would have quashed the flame of the candle. Opening his eyes Yoichi saw that the candle was still burning brilliantly, though the room did now seem a little darker and where his love had once stood, he now saw a child.

Yoichi frowned in reverent disbelief as he stared deep into her dark opal eyes, it was as though somehow time had regressed, he knew this girl, or at least, he knew her eyes. It was like revisiting a time long since passed, lyrics forgotten but a melody at his tongue, a memory perhaps of something he had somehow taken for granted yet now returning to him afresh and with life restored.

But this girl was not the one whom she seemed. There was something much more antiquated about her dress, her hair; her expression remained the same nonetheless but this could not be the girl her appearance claimed her to be, something didn't feel right.

Her lips parted, and before her spirit whispered away into nothing she let out one short sentence:

'I'm here…I'll always be here.' And with her final word she was gone, gone before Yoichi even had a chance to know if it really was her or not.

In her place now lay a small journal, a pale, grey tome almost the colour of the priestess' skin and with tattoos creeping across the cover to match her own.

Yoichi picked up the book and turned to the first page:

_I endure the Piercing of the Soul so people can wash away their feelings.  
The pain of the holly engraved on me shows me many dreams.  
Many kinds of pain, and love. I take on the pain of being left alone, the pain of living._

_But these pains, these pains I bear, they do not fade, but are engraved somewhere hidden, and remain._

_Of the various pains, the more vivid ones ache most intensely. Nobody will take my Holly. It is mine alone._

_I engrave my feelings, my holly, in these mirrors and break them here.  
Because they are my feelings alone. But if it were in my power, I would see him one more time._

At least now he knew who the girl was, and perhaps, although it was not the outcome he could wish to accept, Yoichi was starting to understand his connection to this place. With the candle in his hand, he heaved open the two doors before him and made his way to what might be his final hour.


	5. Fifth Hour

Yoichi stood before the two doors, the talisman now gone –perhaps by the light of the candle, of which he had now dispensed the first and was already burning midway through his second- he was prepared as he'd ever be to enter and face whatever lay waiting for him on the other side.

The doors swung inward with a loud and hollow groan, like a vast stomach empty of food and starved for over a century of waiting. The first thing Yoichi noticed was that he was still outside, it was as though now he were leaving the manor far behind and were entering a sort of vast garden area. Before him a long pathway stretched out, leading through an almighty kashima style shrine gate, to either side of which burned two grand stone lanterns. Descending the stairs before him Yoichi spotted a figure ascending the stairs at the end of the path ahead, stairs that led to another giant manor or construction of other sorts, with the addition of the Shinto gate Yoichi could assume this to be an elaborate shrine, but for what purpose it had here he could not speculate. Nonetheless there was a figure climbing the stairs, no, several figures: two shrouded men or women clambered up the short flight and at the top parted, then between them, Yoichi saw his dear once more; and still glowing a permeating white like a summertime field of lilies. But where were they taking her? What did they want with her?

'Wait!' he called out, but as quick as Yoichi dashed down the path they had vanished beyond the wide oak doors that led to the inside of the building. He was beginning to feel drained now, it was as though the light of the candle was born from the energy of his soul for as it burned closer to his hand Yoichi could feel his body becoming overwhelmed by weakness, soon he wouldn't even have the strength to make it up these steps, but now he had seen her in the hands of those people –whoever they were and whatever they planned- he knew he had enough strength for now, at least. Even still, he wished he could find a sip of sake, or a cold glass of Kahlua, then there was his personal favourite –and not just for the namesake- 'Yoichi single malt'. He was so thirsty he'd pack it right then all in just for one last drink.

Approaching the doors Yoichi saw intricately and lovingly gilded twists of flower like patterns crossing the oak; a sign that these doors led to something much grander than anything he had thus far encountered in the maze like mansion. He placed the candle aside and pinched the flame out then heaved open the huge doors with an audible groan, stepping inside he lit his last candle and allowed his eyes to adjust to the flickering darkness.

At the far side of the spacious room –which indeed seemed to house some form of Shinto altar- stood a wall made up of transparent, red tinted, reed screens; before which lay a wooden altar about the size of a coffin viewed from side on. Behind the screen figures seemed to be hunched around a table, mumbling in low voices; but in the dim light Yoichi forgave his eyesight for playing tricks and his ears for confusing the sounds of an old manor, for as he approached he saw no such figures. Spread atop the surface of the dust iced table lay an arrangement of arcane Buddhist paraphernalia and a small round mirror that seemed to have recently been cleaned; Yoichi approached it, briefly glancing above him at the multifaceted levels of beams and platforms that made up the largely unassailable second story. Soft candles, inexplicably burning, flickered all around him like strobe lights, their flames violent and spritely, like each harboured an observing spirit, jeering at him to venture on to misfortune ahead.

It looked as though he could pass around the altar and through a narrow opening to the side to gain access to the partitioned room, rounding the corner Yoichi now found himself in a small room that instinctively reminded him of a dentists surgery: With an ancient stone bed that seemed to be crudely carved from a larger body of rock and seemed much more rudimentary than the foyer of the shrine; needles and bloody instruments were scattered about the room on a nearby table and to the side of the table lay two great doors that must have led further into the shrine.

Yoichi passed through the doors, past another flickering blue lantern, down a long flight of stairs, and through another door plastered with a highly disturbing _papier-mâché_ of prayer tags that obviously had still not been enough to subdue what hellish rift lay beyond these doors.

Passing through, with no time for hesitation Yoichi found himself strolling down a peer or bridge of sorts, a wooden gangway surrounded by a volume of water. All held in by the wide cave walls that surrounded him, the corners of which only perceptible due to the mysterious presence of beautiful candle lamps, that floated with serenity across the waters like a flock of pale white swans, fluttering their wings in the sallow moonlight. He was so taken by the peculiar presence of the lights that Yoichi hardly noticed the miniscule shine beside him. Resting just at the left of the shrine Yoichi spotted a diary similar to the tattooed diary he had earlier collected, which, as he checked his jacket pocket, he now found had vanished. He collected the book and flipping through the pages he found the same diary entry as before, yet behind the first page was written another entry, this time the handwriting was scrawled and hurried, as though in a moment of desperation, the author had hoped to put something into words before it was forgotten forever.

_Here I break my bonds to the world,_

_Like the snake that wanders my flesh;_

_I am shedding my skin._

_I'd wish to see you once more,_

_But I cannot,_

_This is my role as the maiden:_

_To give my life so that others can live on,_

_And if their pain of loss feels as great as the aching of my beating heart does now_

_Then I would gladly give it all._

_But before I shatter this mirror,_

_Before I am gone from this world,_

_I wish to confess my secret,_

_A secret I hid from all but you, my diary, pray that you are never found._

_I love Kaname._

_I hope, in my endless dreams, we will at last be together,_

_Forever._

_Farewell._

As Yoichi closed the book gently he was beginning to hear that melody as from before, though this time it was not far from here, perhaps beyond the doors just ahead. Turning, he saw the young girl with pigtails had reappeared once more and now stood beckoning to him from the doors and as Yoichi looked down, he realised that somehow his clothing had transformed or otherwise been replaced by a wonderfully handcrafted kimono, tailored with a marvellously soft silk unlike anything that existed by today's standards. It was strange though for as Yoichi considered it, he wondered if perhaps all along he had not been wearing the kimono, after all, had he even looked at his clothing when he awoke to this long dream? How long it had been…he was so tired…but he couldn't turn back now. This was it, through this door, he would find the end to this story, and find his beloved.

The doors parted without even so much as a push, the granite floor and narrowed walls continued to the edge of a dark and deep depression, above which, affixed to a length of rope that wrapped around a winch, hung a ramshackle cage. Its bars looked worn and it swung haphazardly with any slight movement from inside or out. Not that there was much movement from the meagre innards of the enclosure, for inside, crumpled by sheer dejection, immobile as though lobotomised of all emotion from the world, sat his beloved.

Suddenly the rope tensed and the cage rose a little, then something peculiar happened: Yoichi felt time reversing as his body filled with a luminous energy, something like a high from his younger days, as he stepped forward the girl in white sat forward in her cage and suddenly becoming aware of his presence she began to reach out her fingers toward him.

Yoichi felt himself striding forward, stretching for her outstretched fingers, he didn't know why, but somehow he couldn't hold anything back here, he was moved by imperceptible forces just as when he had entered the mansion. But just as their fingers were but inches apart, she slid from his grasp, descending unwillingly into the darkness below. Yoichi stood for a moment, taken by the vehemence the moment had stirred inside of him, then he saw the stairs descending to the left of him, spiralling down into a perpetual pit of blackness.

He could feel it now, he was close.


	6. Final Hour

Yoichi must have slipped into a lucid dream –or dream within a dream- as he dropped from the last step of the arduously winding staircase that seemed to have taken him as long to descend them as it had done for him to get to this point over the whole night.

Awakening from his thoughts of which now he had no previous recollection of, Yoichi narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing this tenebrous chamber for any meagre hint of movement or sign of passage free from this darkness, he found none. Simultaneously, numerous points of light sparked to life at various points around the centre of the small room, Yoichi saw candles placed ceremoniously around the cage, which now lay empty in between them. From this now brightened cave, Yoichi noted the two doors leading away from the room to his left; these doors -just like the two before- were plastered in more talisman tags, each burned and dry; but in darkness such as this it could not have been from the sun's natural effect of yellowing paper but instead perhaps from some inconceivable force powerful enough to break through as many wards as such to destroy them completely.

Despite what would turn most the other way at the very thought, Yoichi shifted the doors –which seemed a great deal heavier than the last- inward, following them in to a room not unlike the underground river he had passed across before, though here, the feeling of emptiness and despair was heavy and repressive. And as he approached the next set of doors, the notion that something terrible was about to happen blanketed him, what's more; somehow, Yoichi knew that he didn't have much time left, as though soon he would either wake up from this dream…or be put to sleep, forever.

The next room, a vast and largely empty cavern, made Yoichi feel as though hidden faces from all around the room were watching his every movement. Along the floor a strange layer of thin mist rolled gently across the floor and like a body of transparent water, the lamps seen crossing the water before now meandered across the plain. Anxious and growing sick of this overwhelming coercion, Yoichi crossed the room, toward a staircase at the back of the cave, leading up to an enormous stone door frame which seemed to be constructed from a number of large blocks, stacked one atop another with a gap, between which two stone doors appeared to enclose the temple inside.

Stepping closer a luminous light broke through a space before him, almost as though the world before him were a giant painted canvas and someone had pierced a gap through to the vivid sunlight shining down from the other side, and before his eyes, his beloved materialised, making her way up the colourless staircase into the colourless abyss beyond.

'Wait!' The words sprung from Yoichi's tongue like a champion diver; 'Hitomi please!' He called out.

She stopped, and then slowly drifted around, her expression that of a scorned child: sorrowful and knowing.

'Please,' she shook her raven hair gently from side to side, 'Yoichi, please, you have to stop, if you carry on this way…'

'I know.' Yoichi blurted, suddenly falling to his knees, 'I understand, but I don't care now. I'll follow you to my death if that's what it takes.'

She stared at him for a moment, her dark eyes flickering from side to side until at last she bowed her head and as she turned she continued up the stairs, becoming one with the blackness inside the temple ahead.

Yoichi found strength to lift himself to his feet, slowly he dragged his feet forward and toward the doors, then just as he was readying to tumble up the stairs, a small hand tugged at the loose fabric of his kimono, shocked he glanced down to see a tiny face smiling between two pigtails;

'Big brother,' she exclaimed playfully, 'I'm not allowed inside, it's through there.'

Yoichi nodded hesitantly and pushed himself up and through the doors, he threw a momentary look back, but she had already vanished. This time Yoichi was sure, this was it: whatever fate or destiny or just sheer bad luck had arranged in that room for him, he was too tired and had come too far to walk away from it now; furthermore, his candle, now on its last few minutes of light, would not last him a return journey

The temple was black inside, and something really did not feel right in here. An obnoxious stench, musty and rife, caused Yoichi to pause for a moment as he entered, the doors grinding closed behind him and sealing away any glimmer of light. His candle did little to abate the powerful darkness packed into this relatively miniscule space; so Yoichi crept forward, inch by inch until his foot collided with something metallic, a sound that resonated through the chamber surely alerting anyone of his presence. Looking down Yoichi collected the lamp that his foot had made contact with and checking inside he just managed to light the semi consumed blue candle contained within, with what flame still flickered from the end of his own moribund candle.

He held it aloft, and with the blue flame now casting pale hues across the floor Yoichi's eyes widened: Scattered everywhere, like the casting room of an ornate doll factory, lay the bodies of countless tattooed priestesses. Like a shooting star crossing a land of pale flesh, rivers of ink and sea's of black, soulless eyes; Yoichi's lamplight drifted across the twisted carpet of bodies, then he stopped.

There she lay, Hitomi - her hands and feet skewered to the earth through four long and well established wooden stakes. Yoichi lost the will to stand and dropped to his knees, casting cerulean lamplight across her gentle, unblinking eyes. Yoichi was still for a moment; then he leant in close and whispered her name:

'Hitomi?'

The her wide eyes shifted and her lips parted a little as she recognised the face behind the light,

'Hitomi!' Yoichi exclaimed, unable to do anything but smile a little as he contemplated their twinned fates from this point in.

'In my dreams,' Yoichi began, his voice silencing the sudden shuffling from behind him, 'I-'

With a muffled crunch and a sudden blunt force rushing from the back of his head, everything went black.

_What happened?_

_What is this blackness?_

_Where do I go from here?_

_If I die in my dreams, is that it?_

_Is this it?_

_Is this…all there is?_

_At least, I suppose, this time_

_we died together._


	7. Conclusion One last farewell

Yoichi awoke. His neck felt twisted and his cheek pressed against some wet and cold softness. As he opened his eyes he was reassured by the sight of the low floor and the futon mattress cushioning his heedless sleeping posture; the cold dampness, it seemed, to be nothing more than dribble.

He felt detached from this world, his mood low and his body almost completely numb: He was thirsty. Yoichi sat up, his head rushed to catch up and his eyesight disappeared momentarily to make room for a splitting headache. Vision restored to its blurry reality Yoichi took in the refuse sight he called a home. Empty whiskey bottles and highball cans were strewn around the edges of the futon. On a high table to his right lay three emptied sake bottles, one of which he recalled spilling across his new laptop last night, but had passed off cleaning it up in exchange for a bottle of awamori he had picked up earlier that evening. He stood shakily to his feet; wading through Asahi and draft one cans from last week and a small tower of imported Guinness bottles he suddenly slipped on a bottle of iichiko shochu which splintered under his bare foot. As the glass pierced his naked skin he collapsed dejectedly forward into the entrance hall, hardly bothering to lift his arms in attempt to protect his face from the mountain of beer cans that lay heaped before him. Crashing into the cans like a child leaping into a coloured ball pit; the memories of last night's dream rapidly coursed through his head like a torrent of snapshots and voices. Yoichi reached a shaking hand up from where he lay and grasped hold of a mantle, feebly forcing his body to his feet once more. He glanced around, then he waded through bin bags and noodle boxes into the kitchen where - as though Santa had squeezed through his chimney (if only he had one) in the night – sat upon his table a mouth watering 21 year old Taketsuru blended whisky: Easily demanding of the title 'liquid gold' if not finer. He had splurged out the ¥8700 for it while drunkenly stumbling through EbisuGarden place a few weeks previous and had been saving it for a time of desperate need, fortunately this was such a time and he unscrewed the lid with the precision of a brain surgeon.

Yoichi pulled the bottle to his dry lips, already sucking in the fruits of the Whiskey's long savoured scent, but as memories of the night previous still drifted through his subconscious, Yoichi began to lower the bottle. He glanced out the window, a shard of brilliant sunlight pierced a cloud of black and he heard children laughing in a nearby playground, the light passed through his window where it drifted steadily across, spotlighting a photograph atop a cabinet. Yoichi's attention now captured he was forced to confront the photograph, and it was one he was not keen to face: Of the two pairs of eyes staring back at him, one were his own, though considerably less tired and creased at the corners from the smile swept across his face. The other eyes, they were…they were her eyes: Hitomi, and he still could not look at them. Why? He thought, what was this surge of painful emotion that rose from inside when he thought about her? Why was it that for so long he had ignored this feeling, what was it, and what was it trying to tell him?

He sighed heavily and in a moment of frustrated defeat, he tossed the bottle to the wall wherein it shattered in a glistening explosion of gold and glass.

He grimaced and still dressed in the clothes he had passed out in, he grabbed a set of keys from the side and dashed from the house, slamming the door shut behind him.

Jerking the car hurriedly into a well used car park and probably breaking several parking violations Yoichi practically fell from the car, throwing his seatbelt and the car door behind him as he dashed into the looming hospital building. He ran past the disconcerted receptionist in a stumbling flurry and rounded a corner into a staircase which he disjointedly assailed, slipping on nearly every flight until he reached the thirteenth floor.

Bursting into a corridor, it was a miracle that the poor male nurse narrowly escaped Yoichi's berserk rampage which, much to his own relief let alone the staff's, ended when he had only passed two or three of the hospital wards' doors.

He opened the room to find her alone and slipping in, Yoichi approached the bed.

She just lay there; her skin as pale and creased as the sheets upon which she lay, her wide, opal eyes were closed and her once flowing, ink black hair now short and patchy. At least, Yoichi realised, it had grown back somewhat. He remembered when the chemo had begun the hair loss had hit her hard and looking back; he wished he done more to comfort her, but he hadn't done more, in fact, he hadn't done anything. Just sat alone at home, loosing the battle against drink, while she sat alone in hospital, loosing her own battle against ovarian cancer.

How long had it been since he'd been here? What was it? Forty nine…fifty days? He couldn't remember, but he was here now; she looked so peaceful sleeping, and fear of confrontation led Yoichi to simply sit at her side. He reached across to he bed and gently gripped her cold fingers. Then he saw something: A letter, it seemed to have been carefully crafted and lay with a pen on a table beside the bed. Frowning, Yoichi took it in-between his shaky fingers and read.

Yoichi.  
You're not here, but you said you always would be.  
I know why, and you know why.  
I told you to stop, I don't know how many times I told you,  
if you carry on this way, you will die.  
I just hope that before I close my eyes I'll see you again,

I don't want to leave yet.

It's so strange.  
In the blurring lines between sleep and reality,  
I've been having these dreams.  
Even though I can't remember what they are about, I do know one thing for sure.  
You were there.  
You were fighting for me.  
I remember calling out to you in the darkness and  
you called back.

Being awake hurts, I think that's why I've been sleeping so much. I've been speaking with a nurse who works here, we're quite alike so she's been keeping me company.  
She talks about a boy she is fond of and I don't know why but, from the way she describes him,

He reminds me of you.

I'm feeling so tired now so I must make this short, but Yoichi I want to say this and its difficult so in this state of mind please don't think I am being ungrateful.  
Remember you once said: ink is clearer than blood on paper?  
I know now what you meant.  
Having never had a real family I can't say what a family is supposed to be like.  
But if it's supposed to be like the movies, then it hasn't really been a picture.  
Despite this,  
You took me in, gave me a name and cared for me.  
You know, perhaps it is best that you aren't here,  
Because I know saying this to your face would only make it harder.

I know I may never have said it before now, but  
I love you,  
just as any daughter should her father.  
Even though you weren't there for me, in the end  
I know that you wanted to be.  
So when you read this don't cry, and please don't drink,

don't give up.  
You can do it,

I know.

And if you miss me, or I miss you, just sleep,

because  
we can always meet in dreams.

Oh, the nurse's name is Reika, please tell her I said thanks.

I hope this isn't, but if it is, then  
Goodbye, dad.

-Hitomi x

Yoichi reached out once more and gripped her cold hand, but he was already too late, she was gone. Then there, in that cold moment Yoichi realised all too late the frailty of life: Like a crisp leaf drifting down a gentle river he had drifted through the great river of life never seeing the flowers and the trees and the insects and the birds and the bee's in all their pretty colours, and now, as one fresh leaf before him slipped down the fast approaching waterfall, never to return, Yoichi saw that his own time may not be so long. Could it be called irony if the greatest lesson he had learnt in life was a lesson learned only through death?

Yoichi stood to his wobbling feet, he leant and kissed her soft forehead, then collapsing at her side, he broke down into a torrent of tears.

But when he at last left, he didn't leave that hospital without making one last enquiry: apparently, there was no such nurse named Reika; but he did thank her nonetheless.

The end


End file.
